This invention relates to electrical wiring apparatus and more particularly to devices and tools for effecting changes in electrical wiring interconnections.
The backplane wiring of particular components of many electrical systems frequently presents a complicated maze of crisscrossing leads and terminal pins. The terminal pins are usually placed in closely spaced rows and columns, and wiring lying in a number of layers between the rows and columns of pins as the individual leads make their connections among the pins. The leads being suitably insulated, this arrangement would present no problems should no changes ever be necessary in the terminal pin interconnections. It will be appreciated, however, that for a number of reasons, wiring changes may be called for after an initial or subsequent wiring scheme has been established. In the past, a wiring change was accomplished by unwrapping the affected lead or leads from the pins at the lead ends and simply withdrawing each lead from the wiring array by means of a suitable grasping tool. This, of course, is readily done when the leads to be withdrawn lie in the outer wiring layer. When part of an underlying layer, however, a lead in the past could only be withdrawn by pulling it against one or more leads of overlying wiring. The stress thus created on overlying wiring frequently led to stripped and nicked insulation, and even broken leads, necessitating a costly and time-consuming search for the damaged leads and their replacement. Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a simple and economical tool to facilitate the selective removal of leads from among others in a complex terminal pin wiring array.